I have a number of ideas I’d like to try out and implement in the MyHeatpumpApp. As I don’t want to break my live system, I’m wondering what the best way would be to have that development App side-by-side with my production system. Ideally I’d have a GitHub repo with a fork of emoncms/app, clone that somewhere on my RPi that runs the emonsd image and have my development app appear in the list of apps side-by-side with the “factory” apps. Is there a guide on how to achieve this or maybe have a completely separate development container somewhere that still has access to all my heatpump data? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hello @Andre_K
The easiest way is just to create a new branch on your live system and experiment with changes there and then “git checkout” back to the main branch if/when you need to.
Alternatively, the way I often develop is that I have emoncms installed on my laptop and then I use the sync module to copy over all the data from the Pi, I will often do a sync just before working on the app as I can then see the app as though it had almost live data. This also serves as my data backup.
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Thanks. Having emoncms on my laptop seems like the best option. As I’m running Windows, would the best option be to install the Docker image? What would be the most practical way to develop then? Edit locally in VSCode, commit changes & push to my GitHub fork, pull within Docker and test?
@alexandrecuer is it straightforward for @Andre_K to use your latest docker image as a development environment? Access the emoncms source code directly from VSCode externally from the Docker environment? but use the sync module to clone across the data from the Pi?
I think this is what it will do out the box?
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@TrystanLea : yes, definitely
to make it really easy is to use a .devcontainer folder in the repo with a devcontainer.json files and others…like what i did for postprocess postprocess/.devcontainer at master · emoncms/postprocess · GitHub
so you just have to open the emoncms repo with VScode and press reopen as a devcontainer
cf add devcontainer for vscode by alexandrecuer · Pull Request #33 · emoncms/postprocess · GitHub
I have that setup for emoncms core, so i can make a PR if you want. tell me
if it is to develop for the app module (GitHub - emoncms/app: Emoncms App module: application specific dashboards: includes myelectric, mysolarpv, myheatpump and solar + wind app.) it just need to be adapted…
@Andre_K : you are running windows, so you will have to setup WSL and docker but maybe it is already installed ?
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Thanks @alexandrecuer !
Thanks! I have docker and WSL running anyways. No experience with devcontainers but this looks like a nice solution. How are the devcontainers related to the full emoncms setup? The way I understand it, the devcontainer would be for e.g. apps, but they surely depend on the rest of a working emoncms install?
you clone the app module with git : git clone http://github.com/emoncms/app
you enter the app folder you’ve just cloned and you create at its root a .devcontainer folder inside with 2 files : dev-compose.yaml and devcontainer.json
dev-compose.yaml should be like that :
services:
devcontainer:
image: alexjunk/emoncms
volumes:
- data:/data
- ../:/opt/emoncms/modules/app
ports:
- 8088:80
- 8883:1883
restart: always
volumes:
data:
with this compose file, you mount the cloned folder, which you will use for your developments, as /opt/emoncms/modules/app within the standalone container which will run the alexjunk/emoncms image.
devcontainer.json should be like that :
{
"name": "postprocess_dev",
"dockerComposeFile": "dev-compose.yaml",
"workspaceFolder": "/opt/emoncms/modules/app",
"shutdownAction": "stopCompose",
"service": "devcontainer",
"customizations": {
"vscode": {
"extensions": [
"devsense.phptools-vscode"
]
}
}
}
then you launch VScode and open the app folder…VScode will invite you to reopen in container, you answer yes and it will build the setup…
your emoncms dev instance should be available at http://127.0.0.1:8088
you can start modifying the app module within VScode : happy coding 
that shoudl be the same process for all the modules, except the mount point which is different for symlinked modules
for emoncms core, there is a little more things to adjust…
all those .decontainer files could be in original repos so its transparent for developpers…
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Brilliant, trying that right now!
Just so I understand correctly:
This approach essentially instantiates your full emoncms container but everything from the app module is linked back (via the mounted volumes) to my locally cloned repo and hence persistent over restarts? And emoncms uses the repo that is within /opt and overrides its default /var/www location?
The only thing missing for me is that I get the error that the sync service is not running: I can connect to my emonpi and see all feeds, but I cannot download any data. The feeds appear locally but are empty. Any idea on how this could be fixed?
I guess this is because some PR are not yet merged…
Do you also mount the core repo from emoncms ?
If you dont, sync should work…
@TrystanLea : could you merge this ?
And also this ?
I don’t mount anything in addition. Just used the devcontainer setup you posted here.
where do you fetch the feeds ? local emonpi in https ?
you can try why another image :
docker pull alexjunk/emoncms:alpine3.20_emoncms11.6.12
I faced problems with sync while being in https cf sync not working in https · Issue #39 · Open-Building-Management/emoncms · GitHub
I tried my local emonpi - will retry with emoncms.org and also the other image you linked. Thanks for the help!
Got it working with alexjunk/emoncms:alpine3.20_emoncms11.6.12 in the devcontainer. However, I think the app folder from /opt needs to be linked to the /var/www location. I just removed the folder from /var/www and linked the one from /opt there. I don’t think that is persistent though - what’s the best prectice to achieve this?
Generelly, I love your dev container. Really great work. It would be perfect to have this as an allround dev environment for all parts of emoncms, i.e. being able to edit all parts of emoncms on my local computer without having to configure independent containers. It would make it much easier to contribute.
Done, thanks @alexandrecuer !